In English, the term "Chinese" can be used broadly (referring to all the varieties of speech and written language that share the same heritage of classical Chinese, and which are now quite divergent) or narrowly (to refer the the dominant and official variety of speech and the style of writing and reading that is based on it). The narrow reference of Chinese is also called Mandarin, when the distinction is important. The broad meaning covers the native language varieties of about 95% of the population in the People's Republic of China, while the narrow meaning refers to the variety that is natively spoken by about 70% of the population, although most of the other 30% speak Mandarin as a second language.[My answer is getting too long, and it is off-topic, so I am posting a continuation as a separate post, please reply there if you want to keep discussing.]